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Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

Jeez where has it been?
Once had this sort of problem when working on with a furrow press.....we were making it wider.
Surprisingly the shaft and rings form an extremely close relationship, in other words getting the rings off to put in the longer axle was a bit of a job.
Local dealer told us of his answer........dump the whole thing in pond for a period of time, like a few weeks.
After that it would be simple .
But I suppose that would be accumulated dust and grime with a little rust.
8 Ply tyres are available for that size.....much tougher and longer lasting.
Tyre fitter put them onto a small trailer for me.....kept exploding tyres due to excessive speed, +60 rather than -50.
Blow them up to perhaps 50lb to eliminate any flexing and reduce the heat build up leading to eventual destruction.

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

Originally Posted by Gee

Jeez where has it been? In the nettles like I said earlier.

8 Ply tyres are available for that size.....much tougher and longer lasting.

When the haybob was introduced they were fitted with rubbish tyres as I found out to my cost. It's no fun rowing up fit hay and trying to keep the height right on the linkage instead of on the wheels. I soon swapped them for more ply, and the same with all our other haybobs until they started to put decent wheels and tyres on.

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

Originally Posted by zaza

When the haybob was introduced they were fitted with rubbish tyres as I found out to my cost. It's no fun rowing up fit hay and trying to keep the height right on the linkage instead of on the wheels. I soon swapped them for more ply, and the same with all our other haybobs until they started to put decent wheels and tyres on.

Not wrong about the rubbish tyres! I think I replaced them after the first season. At the time, I assumed that they were old stock sent to Aus - far enough away for no claims! Vredestein, from memory.

I used the pressure control on the 135 to take most of the weight of the machine, putting less strain on the tyres as they bump over cow hoof holes

Checked today: the bend in the stalks points backwards, and my wheels were no trouble to remove: remove the single bolt in the shield and the wheels almost fall off.

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

Originally Posted by Ironhead

ditto on the job well done - I see you did a bit of machining because of the "Neanderthal"

Thank you Ironhead. I've had to pull all sorts of stunts to get that far. It's surprising what goes on in those rotors. I had never even given it any thought prior to this project. Always made sure that everyone greased the things properly and we never had any issues with the wheel stalks seizing preventing height adjustment. It is actually surprising how many I see now that have had the top of the wheel stalk bashed with a hammer to try and move them. I reckon there are a lot of them out there with the same problem as this one.

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

The wheels on newer versions at least just have a washer and bolt to retain on the axle I think.
Ours have been removed quite a lot to fix punctures and new tyres/tubes.
It's a measure of their general simplicity and reliability that I never saw inside one like in the pic.
Other parts do seem to occasionally 'get bent'.

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

While I would agree with the reliability comment I do think they are somewhat over-complicated engineering-wise in respect of what they do. But maybe that is why they are so reliable. I got back to the machine today and started to fit new tine springs, nylon blocks & rings and roll pins.

It is actually quite some years since I ran haybobs and I have to confess to having forgotten the technique for replacing the springs. I remembered that the tine had to come off but I had taken mine off anyway but once I figured out how to get the roll pin in the right place to catch the hook on the springs it started to come back to me. It is this latter exercise that I could never understand why it hadn't been designed with the operator in mind. I know that the tines fold up out of the way which is a good thing but couldn't the method by which it is acheived been a bit more simple ?

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

...... but couldn't the method by which it is acheived been a bit more simple ?[/QUOTE]

I agree it is a design which it is difficult to handle, and "simple" is always better; pretensioning the spring and getting the roll pin correctly positioned is a pain - but it works well and I can't think of an alternative design which is better

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

Originally Posted by john maddock

I agree it is a design which it is difficult to handle, and "simple" is always better; pretensioning the spring and getting the roll pin correctly positioned is a pain - but it works well and I can't think of an alternative design which is betterJV

I agree and I was thinking yesterday as I was working on it that the person who thought of and designed the setup is quite ingenious. Also quite cheap, some nylon blocks & rings, roll pins and some springs. The trick in fitting is acquiring the knack. Once you've got that then it's a piece of cake.

Re: Could anybody help with a Haybob please ?

Originally Posted by john maddock

Going off topic here: am I correct in thinking Zweegers designed the first disc mower, and licensed it to MF, who made the MF52 (I think that' s the correct code)?

JV

Not sure about a disc mower. I bought a new 4 drum PZ Cyclomower mower in about 1969, the only other "circular" type of hay mowers at that time as far as I'm aware were the 4 drum Bamford Wizzler which I was told was built under licence from PZ and the 4 drum Fahr Turbomower. The list price for the PZ was £385 and the Bamford was £350 but a lot of people had never heard of PZ so bought the Bamford but there were quite a few problems with it. The reason always given was that "the steel in a Bamford wasn't as good as the steel in a PZ" !!

I went to a demo. of a saucer mower shortly after and it was a Garnier machine made in France I think. It was demo'ed in Coventry on what looked like a WW2 bomb site but I was impressed that even when it hit bricks, pipes etc. it still kept going. I never bought a saucer mower though because I thought there was too much going on in the bed of the thing. At least with a PZ drum mower you've got a coupling that will shear in the gearbox and it was reletively easy to get at. And that is quite important as a contractor and going into fields that you don't know.